Mono_X •
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The crux of their argument seems to be 'I've grown up and my life has changed - but it must be the game that's different and not me'.

Although having said that; there are a number of genres that have been declining. You don't see many games like Blur or Split/Second anymore. I also notice that 'The Legend of Kay' got s 10th anniversary re-release - I can't remember the last time you saw a game like that get a major release. Reply+12

The Xbox division has never cared about gamers or gaming and never will.

The 'missteps' that were made with the Xbox One were actually a window into MS' long term strategy and ultimate ambition.

The Xbox division has always been a Trojan horse. It represents MS' goal to control 'the living room', where it can control how you watch TV and sport, or listen to music or play games.
Then it can use Xbox Live to charge you for the privilege of being charged by other companies (and then charging those companies) for the privilege of accessing content you have probably already been charged for.

MS only considered moving into 'gaming' when Sony made it apparent that they intended on 'moving the computer into the living room'.

MS never wanted to make any hardware: MS wanted other companies to do that, then they would simply put Xbox Live on to that hardware.

Furthermore I'd like to add:
Anyone saying that this will limit the amount of people who get to play Tomb Raider is basically talking bullshit.

The PS4 has sold 10m & the XBone 5m, that's a total of 15m.

That means that 90% of people who own a PS3 or a 360 have not actually decided which (if any) next console they want to buy. If Tomb Raider is that important to them they will buy a XBone (which is point of exclusivity) or they'll wait for another version. Reply-2

@Guy.J.
Hmmm, I don't think it has changed that much (notwithstanding that it always changes every 5-6 years), the only difference was that Sony lost the dominance it had for a decade. Now it looks like it's on the cusp of returning to that dominance, I expect old practices to return.

If I was SCE right now, I'd be looking to get COD exclusivity and stick another nail in MGS' coffin (so to speak). Reply+2

This article smacks of fanboyism masquerading as journalism so hard it almost hurts.

'Lara Croft and Solid (or Naked, or whatever) Snake: you can't rival these two rock stars of gaming for their iconic power.'

Lara Croft is beyond iconic, do you think we'll ever see Snake on the cover of 'The Face' magazine, or advertise Lucozade? Or have a A-list Hollywood celeb play him in a movie?
There's no comparison and we all know it. Why? Well that brings me to:

'Tomb Raider has always been a multi-platform game; the majority of gamers have always had access to it.'

As others have already pointed out, Sony enjoyed numerous years of Tomb Raider exclusivity on it's consoles. During that time Lara Croft became synonymous with gaming and with Playstation. It was a driving

I could go on about this. Remember when GTAIII exploded onto the games scene. Guess what? It had timed exclusivity on the PS2. How many people bought a PS2 for that game? It was one of the reasons I did.

Exclusivity has been a part of gaming for years, just because it happened a little less in the last five, it doesn't mean that anything changed.

The bottom line is:

If the game has some kind exclusivity on a popular, trendy console or console you like then it's a prudent business move.

If the game has exclusivity on a untrendy console, or a console you don't like, then let the fanboy bet-wetting commence. Reply-2

If Nintendo had announced an intention to support these servers for another 10 years: The same haters would be saying no one plays Nintendo games online and that the online service is a dinosaur and Nintendo should shut the servers down because they need to save cash because they're so short on funds........ Reply+1

Anyone trying to compare a console to a mobile phone or PC regarding having no disc drive doesn't really understand the reality of the business side of these products.

A PC or mobile phone are products in their own right and are basically sold at a profit independent of the content that will be sold on them.

Consoles are generally sold at little or no profit - it's games that make the profit (this applies equally to manufacturer, distributor and retailer).
So if a retailer can't sell games to make a profit they won't bother selling a console unless they get a MUCH better profit margin.

This means:
A) The manufacturer would have to sell the console onto the retail chain at lower price (and has to eat the losses themselves - unlikely considering they are already running close to losses).

B) The price to the consumer would have to be increased. I reckon this would add a good £100 to the price of a console. THIS is why the PSPGO was more expensive than a normal PSP. This option would alienate a lot of people.

Until a new kind of business model appears, physical games won't be disappearing. Reply+9

I've got some links too, from less than 2 weeks ago. It's been reported that MS are hiding their Xbox losses by grouping it with the profits they make from android patents. It looks like they're losing to the tune of $2 billion a year on Xbox in reality.

Shrinking market or not, the 3DS is still outselling every other piece of dedicated hardware out there currently.

And it's ironic when you talk about Nintendo having to rely on the 3DS for profit. When both Sony and MS are currently incapable of making any profit from their hardware at all and have to rely on their other divisions to prop them up.
Now that's truly embarrassing. Reply0

'if not I will pop out and pick up a new one this afternoon while out shopping. Bound to get one at a fairly reasonable price. The frustrating thing is I believe my digital purchases, and online account are restricted to the knackered machine.'

Definitely contact Nintendo customer services first, your machine is still under warranty and they will replace it free of charge and transfer all digital purchases (you may need to back up saves though) and IIRC they should extend the warranty for another 12 months.
In my experience Nintendo customer services have been excellent. Reply+8

@man.the.king
'but present YOUR prediction of both PS4 and XB1 NOT being able to provide diversity in games as a fact - that's....not very consistent.'

OK, lets use EA as a example - 2nd biggest publisher in the world.

In 2007 across all consoles and handhelds EA published 35 different games.

in 2012 it was 19

So far in 2013 it's 9, AFAIK only the new NFS and BF4 are left to be released by EA so that takes it up to 11.

That's pretty grim reading no matter how you try and spin it.

Activision is a 'little' better.

2007; 12 games
2012; 17 games
2013; 6 so far + COD (any more?) = 7

It's pretty obvious that objectively there's been a decline in the variety of games released in the past few years, I've seen nothing to show that this is going to reverse.

'As long as I get the variety of games I want, I see NO reason for me to stop supporting the PS/XBox platforms.'

It doesn't matter what YOU subjectively consider to be diversity - for example; if you love playing FPS and nothing else, there's plenty of diversity. But if you're a fan of arcade racing games (like me), the choices are pretty slim nowadays (your 'diverse' list of games included no racers whatsoever).

'On the Nintendo console platform, unfortunately, all the games I keep on seeing them pushing have either Mario or Zelda in the title, a few times Luigi. And many of them seem to be HD remakes going at full price. Not very encouraging in my view.

As far as sheer number of diverse games go, for me, therefore, the PS/XBox console platforms win.'

That's because you're choosing to not look very hard.

'From your repeated criticism of the PS/XBox platforms, and repeated defense of the Nintendo platform, you obviously like the Nintendo exclusive games. More power to you.'

I don't deny I like some of the exclusive games on Nintendo platforms. But I also like some of the exclusive games on the PS3 (Xbox 360 not so much lol - only PGR and Crackdown) too and they have been very good fun, but the PS3 has seen a decline from the glory days of the PS2. If you're content with that, well more power to you.

'But please don't insist that I must like the same endless parade of 2 or 3 characters in games as you.'

@man.the.king
'However, that's ignoring the fact that, even before this generation has begun, both the PS4 and the XB1 seem to be doing rather well.'

How can something be doing well before before it's even out? This is just hype driven supposition.

'While diversity may have dwindled, COMPARATIVELY & RELATIVELY, I got both diversity and new games and characters, across the PlayStation and XBox platforms, while I DON'T get that on the Nintendo platforms.'

OK, what I've been saying is that game diversity has been dwindling and will continue to do in the next few years. If a game that sells 3+ million copies cannot break even on it's costs, then something is seriously wrong. People have been warning of the death of the middle tier of games on console for a while now. It's likely that the PS4 & Xbox One will drive push this eventuality even further.

If you comparing the diversity of PS3 & 360 games to the Wii: There's plenty of diversity on the Wii to match. IKf you REALLY want I could make a list. Reply+2

@man.the.king
'Going by the state of things currently, I don't think there is even a sliver of a chance of either manufacturer (Sony or Microsoft) dropping out (barring some catastrophe).'

Obviously you're unaware of the situations with both companies. Let's start with Sony.

When they released the PS3, it lost them so much money that it obliterated the combined profit of the PS1 & PS2. The PSP never really made a profit and the PSV is not looking good. The result is that SCE is basically running at total loss currently.
This wouldn't be so bad, but the rest of Sony is also in a bad way losing market share all the time (to Samsung in particular). Sony had to sell one of its HQ's in the US and all its shares in 3M to raise operating capital to keep the company going. Sony is in a pretty unstable position.

And now MS. Microsoft has never really made a profit from consoles, the original Xbox lost MS $10 billion and even with the 360 I'm not sure if the E&D division made that back. Now we have the launch of the Xbox One. To put it into perspective when Sony launched the £425 PS3 it was after having the PS2 - the most popular console of all time, which sold the most games of all time and have the best market share of all time, yet none of this helped the PS3.
Now the Xbox One is proving deeply unpopular, has none of the advantages Sony had and costs £430.... Do you truly believe it's not going to be rough for MS.
And let's look at the rest of MS, Win8 is not selling to expectations, the Surface is a disaster and Windows Phone is a joke. MS need to get its house in order, something's got to give in the future and E&D might be on the chopping block.

The PS2 had the most diverse catalogue of games of all time, the PS3 and 360 just don't compare, there were 10,000+ games on the PS2. Games diversity has dwindled since the PS2. It's dwindled in the last few years as well. Reply0

But this entire argument about the Wii U has been about sales and talk about sales is pretty pointless without talking about profit.
If you spend loads of cash on a console only to see the manufacturer drop you wouldn't be happy. Which brings me to:

'I care about the newest, most diverse, varied, superlative experiences. And those I can get by investing in the PS4 + XB1.'

Yeah....... good luck with that, those 2 consoles are probably going to have the least diverse games catalogues of all time. Diversity in gaming has been dwindling for years, just compare PS2 to anything else. Reply+2

@dogmanstaruk
'Nah mate, it has been struggling a bit. Seems a bit roller coaster. One minute it appears to be ahead, then behind.'

The reason for this is; the 3DS has been having better sales than the DS..... until the release of the DS Lite comes into the equation - DSL sales went through the roof and now the 3DS is tracking behind it. Reply+4

Nintendo don't represent the values that certain types of the people who frequent these forums hold dear.

Those values being:
Moar power is better.
Nintendo make kiddie games which aren't for 'real' gamers.

Plus of course, these types of people have generally been (quite wisely) pointing out Nintendo is doomed for the last 10 years and Nintendo has been proving them wrong. And this makes them look stupid (not wise). Reply+4

@Lync
'Everyone is very keen to say the Wii U line-up sucks, but nobody will tell me what the big games it's missing are, so I'm not sure what to take as the criteria for this year's upcoming awesome games, except not being on Wii U is a major criterion.'

But don't you understand, Nintendo are always wrong, wrong, wrong! Provided you ignore the fact that they are the ONLY consistently successful video game hardware manufacturer in the world.

Sony and MS are of course always right, right right. Why? Well because of 'moar power', that's why. Just ignore the fact that neither company had any tangible profit in this generation. I mean the PS2 was a big success and that was launched ONLY 14 years ago. Sony and MS have had plenty of success since then...... Reply-1

Everything Dan says is fair enough, but it's shame the retrospective only touches on the narrative/immersive elements of the game.

I played and enjoyed GTA IV, but coming back to the game a few years later after playing Saint's Row 2 & 3: I found the controls clunky, somewhat unresponsive and Niko a little uncontrollable, he had strange animation and could move strangely. I felt almost unplayable.

The game also has reduced scope and ambition. Smaller gameworld, smaller selection of side missions, smaller choice of vehicles to drive, even less clothing options. I also hated some of the decisions I was forced to make, so much for openness.

I feel it hasn't aged too well and was hugely overrated at the time - 98 on metacritic for the console versions (tops both charts) - really? Reply+7

FWIW it at 14 on the individual chart. Is that good or bad for relatively niche title? I dunno. But for comparison, it's one spot higher than The Bureau: Xcom Declassified on the Xbox 360 which was also a new release. Reply-2

'Fiasco has ended up at the forefront of a great shift in role-playing. Sales of fat, luxurious role-playing source books, meant to create grand campaigns, have been trailing off for a while now. At the same time, smaller, independently-published books like Fiasco have been gaining attention. '

You've obviously not seen Pathfinder. :eek:

Joking aside I mostly agree with this, although this shift has been occurring probably since the late 90's. My 'go to' RPG is now the relatively 'rules-lite' Savage Worlds - which is just celebrating it's 10th Anniversary. Reply0